Geoff Blum played the role of Cub killer for the second straight day, leading the Houston Astros to win two out of three in Houston with two consecutive game winning hits.  In the series finale on Thursday, Blum drove home Hunter Pence in the bottom of the 13th for the game winner.

Can’t blame the pitching for this series loss; the bulls-eye is squarely aimed at a Cubs offense which struggled to scrape together two runs  – count ‘em two runs, both on solo HR’s I might add – in the last 22 innings.  After 8 solid innings for Big Z yesterday, Ryan Dempster pitched a great game and even the struggling back end of the bullpen of Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg kept the Astros at bay.

The good news for the Cubs is that they head back to the Friendly Confines to start their portion of interleague play.  The Cubs start their only homestand of June with matchups against the AL Central.  They open with three against the Minnesota Twins, move on to another three in a rare weekday series against the hater cross-town rival White Sox and close out the home portion of the June schedule in welcoming back Kerry Wood and Mark DeRosa and the Cleveland Indians next weekend.   The Cubs need to get some home-cooking going this weekend and get the offense back on track and in sync with the recent good pitching.

Plenty more on the cross-town rivalry next week.  In the meantime, with the White Sox playing the NL Central leading Brewers, is it OK to root for the Sox this weekend?  Light it up in the Comments!

GO CUBS GO!!!